Residential Mobility and Homeownership in Dar es Salaam

We study the intra-urban settlement experiences of residents in the periphery of Dar es Salaam, emphasizing the importance of homeownership as a key dimension of how migrants and urban-born residents shift their residence within the city's boundaries. Before residents settle in the periphery, they have often lived more than a decade in central and consolidated parts of the city. Many are former migrants, though having become well-established urban residents. Both migrants and urban-born residents often move to the periphery when seeking to establish themselves as homeowners. To a large extent, peripheral residents consider themselves permanent urban residents. The findings suggest that intra-urban residential mobility is a major feature of urban expansion in Dar es Salaam and that the peripheral areas may therefore not function as major arrival areas for new migrants to the city.